


I'm Learning

by surfgirl (verushka70)



Category: due South
Genre: Drama, Episode Related, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-03-26
Updated: 1999-03-26
Packaged: 2018-11-11 05:23:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11141850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verushka70/pseuds/surfgirl
Summary: Short fic from Fraser's POV on the "bluff" with Ladyshoes at the end of Odds.





	I'm Learning

**Author's Note:**

> This story was once archived at [Due South Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Due_South_Archive). It has not been changed (nor will it be) on import to the AO3, except to more appropriately or descriptively tag, and to fix broken web links. Ever so grateful to [Open Doors](http://opendoors.transformativeworks.org/) and to [Speranza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Speranza/pseuds/Speranza), for making the archive import to AO3 happen. TYK!

As loathsome as it was, as utterly unchivalrous and un-Mountie-like as it was, I could not stop myself from doing it. 

It was a terrible thing to do. I should be pitched off a four story building myself for having done it. 

But of course, no one will do that. I'm Constable Benton Fraser, a Dudley Do-right to most people. They can not conceive of me even being _capable_ of such capricious cruelty. 

Neither could I, before tonight. 

I wonder if Ray knew... what he would think. He would probably tell me "It's not a big deal, Frase, it happens." As his fits of anger -- summer storms, they seem to me, intense but brief -- sometimes get the better of him. Punched walls. Roughed up suspects. Even punching your partner and friend. "It happens." 

But it doesn't happen to me. 

Or so I thought. 

And Ray doesn't know I held Denny Scarpa's hand as she dangled four stories above a very hard, poured-concrete sidewalk... 

And let it go. 

Oh, I knew I would catch her hand with my other hand. There was never any doubt in my mind. 

What I wanted was to see the doubt in _her_ mind. On her face. On that perfect, symmetrical, smooth, seductive face. 

I'm so ashamed. It came over me in such a flash. That calculating look in her eye, even as her life dangled almost literally by a thread-- 

It so angered me, I pretended I would let her go. Drop her four stories to what would have been a very messy, and probably not immediate -- possibly a prolonged -- death. And very ugly. The skull, the cranium, can not withstand such an impact. So much for her perfect face. 

And the worst of it all is... the most horrible thing... the most detestable aspect of it, of _me_ , is... 

I enjoyed that look of sheer terror that came to her face. I distinctly remember a feeling of warmth burning slowly up from my stomach to my heart... spreading across my chest with satisfaction. It was _physical_ pleasure I felt, not just emotional. 

I'm not even worthy of the Serge anymore. My God, how could I have done it? In all my previous cases, on the trail of my father's _killers_ , I never abused my power over a criminal. I even protected Gerrard, much though it sickened me to do so. 

Why her? Why Ladyshoes? 

Oh, it's all so obvious now. Of course it is. 

But at the time, I could only think of showing her, in the most brutal and unsubtle way, that I was no fool. That, for once, I was not duped. That, for once, such an attractive and alluring woman had _no_ hope of deceiving me about her true motives. I had to _prove_ it in the most corrupt, vile way possible. 

But what does that mean to her? She's doubtless encountered many men who were quickly wise to her deceptions, in her line of "work". She's a liar, an easy liar. It is probably all she knows how to do, and so ingrained in her that my watershed moment wouldn't change her in the slightest. It will just make her realize she miscalculated on this one \-- make her wary of seemingly naive, innocent, Good-Samaritan-like men she may encounter in the future. It won't have taught her any lesson but that. 

And that's just another terrible fruit borne of my lack of self-control. In the future, this woman (who doubtless will need compassion and assistance when she is released from prison) may encounter a seemingly good man. And then she'll think of me. And think that, really, underneath, he's not a good man, after all. 

As I am not. 

But the true meaning that moment had for me, Denny will never know. I wouldn't tell her if she wanted to know, though she might easily guess the general thrust of it. 

I wonder if Ray -- or Ray -- would figure it out as easily as she might? Probably not. 

It sounds so trite. There should be someone here like Rick Blaine from that film classic, Casablanca. As when he -- Rick -- dismisses Ilsa's tragic explanation of how she came to betray him with his cynical response. "I heard a story once too. It went along with the sound of a tinny piano playing downstairs in the parlour... 'Mister, I met a man...' " 

But there it is. 

I met a woman. 

She all but destroyed me. 

I would have thrown away everything -- my dignity, my reputation, the honor of being a Mountie, my friendship with Ray which I was so pathetically grateful to have, yet paradoxically so pathetically ready to forsake for... for what? "Love"? Is that what it was? 

I don't know anymore. 

All I do know is that Victoria marked me. Changed my life. Apparently much more for the worse than even I knew, until now. Not that it wasn't bad enough that I could hardly bring myself to discuss her -- it -- the whole situation -- with Ray afterward. I couldn't face it. I, Benton Fraser, was too much of a coward to discuss with Ray what I would have let happen to _him --_ all for the love of a woman. In a thousand ways since then, I've tried to make it up to him, praying that he would see it for what it was: my penance. 

All for the love of a woman. 

Surely, though, that's nothing Denny Scarpa is capable of feeling: love. 

But how would I know? How, really, would I know? I'm about as experienced with love as a colt on new legs is experienced at walking. When I'm not running, I fall all too easily. There are only two ways to go about it -- get close, or run away. Surely I can't be blamed, after what I went through with Victoria, for always opting for the latter. 

Besides, if Denny Scarpa _could_ feel love... it could only be in the most self-serving way. Of that I am certain. 

But I am just making excuses for myself. Rationalizing. Justifying and rationalizing that for which there is no rationale, no justification. 

I let my emotions completely control my behavior. That is what I did. Even though I _know_ better. I've spent my entire adult life helping to weed such people out of the general society, for the good of all the others... only to find such a person in myself. 

I am utterly despicable. Unworthy of redemption. To have stooped so low... to have sunk to that level... What made me do it? Why couldn't I stop? 

It was in her face. Not just that look of terror. 

But that sudden, gut-wrenching expression of need, life-and-death _need_. She needed me, desperately. Not for the reasons I might have needed Victoria, but with the same intensity and fear for her life. 

For once, I got to see that naked fear and need on someone else's face, instead of trying to hide it on my own. 

And it pleased me to cause her fear. It pleased me. Beyond reason. In a deep, dark, sick part of myself, it pleased me. 

Though it sickens me -- I sicken myself -- now. 

Mother, it is good you died. I never thought I would say that or think it. 

But this is not the boy you meant to raise, of that I am sure. You would not want to see what he has become. Something happened between the time when I was your little boy and now... Well, many things happened. I didn't think they'd changed me that much. I didn't even think they had really _touched_ me that much. 

Yet I am not the man I wanted to be. Or you would have wanted me to be. Or Dad would have wanted me to be. 

A man, a real man, a _whole_ man, does not need to affect the lives of those around him for the way it makes him feel inside. Does not need to impress upon others how great his power over their lives is. 

Only a very small man needs to do that. 

I am not sure how I could be so much more stunted than I had thought. 

I will have to backtrack over many things to figure this out. Do what must be done to purge this loathsome aspect of my self. If it can be purged. 

Mother, for once, I pray you can not see me now from where you are. 

It seems such a little thing -- so minor -- if one says, "it was a bluff". 

Yes, it was a bluff. But a life and death bluff. 

"I thought you said you didn't bluff," she gasped, after I had released her hand with one hand and then swiftly grabbed it with the other. Just enough of a jerk and a drop to bring her stomach, her heart, into her throat. That roller coaster feeling when the bottom drops out. Except this roller coaster was a sheer drop of four floors, with no safety belt, no tracks under her, no net. Nothing but air and the hand of a conflicted man holding her up. A hand that could no longer be trusted to continue to support her. 

"I'm learning." 

How do I unlearn?  
   
   
   
  

  


End file.
